The Deacon's Bench

Man’s best friend

As St. Theresa reminds us, in this excerpt from the Office of Readings for today, it’s Christ:

What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side? Unlike our
friends in the world, he will never abandon us when we are troubled or
distressed. Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps him
near. Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other
name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus
was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this
truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the
great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path: Francis,
Anthony of Padua, Bernard, Catherine of Siena. A person must walk along
this path in freedom, placing himself in God’s hands. If God should
desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares
his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.

So true. I found this to be the case with Francis of Assisi as I looked to him as a model peacemaker, relying on the legend of the taming of the wolf of Gubbio for my own work Taming the Wolf: Resolving the Conflicts Ruining Your Life.
His devotion to the gospel life provides a living model of how a life lived in such a manner leads to peace.

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